zgood morning, everyone. i'm chris jansing in for craig melvin. let's start with the latest facts on the pandemic. in california, millions of people are waking up to new stay at home orders. the state is running out of icu beds. dr. fauci is praising the state for taking action, but also says california didn't really have a choice. this morning, it's back to school again for some students in the nation's largest school district. new york city's preschoolers and some kids in kindergarten through fifth grade are getting back to in-person learning after weeks of classroom closures, and even as the coronavirus crisis worsens there. and the man leading donald trump's election fight, rudy giuliani, has been diagnosed with covid-19. the 53rd person in trump's orbit to get covid since october.

he is hospitalized, though he is tweeting he is feeling only mild symptoms so far. and we're learning who will help lead president-elect joe biden's fight against this pandemic. california attorney general javier becerra has been tapped to lead the department of health and human services, and three new senior white house positions will be added. sending a message that an aggressive response in the coming months is coming to this unprecedented crisis. we'll have a lot more on biden's plans in a moment. first, alabama health care workers say they're starting to see the first reverberations of thanksgiving impacting the pandemic there. the number of cases in alabama has jumped close to 30% just over the past couple of weeks. nbc's catie beck is at the university of alabama hospital in birmingham, which is in jefferson county, which has been hit, as i understand it, particularly hard. what are medical workers telling you about the challenges they're facing now that we're starting to see this growth in cases after thanksgiving?

>> reporter: yeah, chris, health care workers here are calling this a crisis already. they have about 2,000 people statewide that are hospitalized right now for coronavirus in the state of alabama. as you said, alabama's positivity rate hovering somewhere around 36% right now, as one of the highest in the country. that means that, basically, one out of every three people that are getting tested for the coronavirus are getting a positive result. those are numbers that are trending in the wrong direction for alabama health officials, as they see this post thanksgiving surge. they are attributing a lot of these skyrocketing numbers to those gatherings that happened at thanksgiving. their bigger fear is christmas and new years are right around the corner, and that these overlapping surges are going to be really overwhelming to the hospital systems here in alabama. they are worried about medication supply. they're worried about bed supply. they're also worried about the effect this is going to have on health care workers who have

already been strained and pushed to the limit for months, dealing with this virus. at this point, hoped to see the numbers decline and are now seeing the total opposite occur. at least here in alabama where these numbers are just surging after thanksgiving. health professionals here are saying they are concerned, they are seeing some facilities start to scale back elective procedures to try to prepare for what will be the influx inside the hospitals. they say something has to give. if you're dedicating all your resources to caring for coronavirus patients, what does that mean for the rest of the people that need care in your community. here's what one doctor told us today. >> all of our medicine as and rs are dedicated to covid care. by definition, we're going to be limited in the services we can offer for those other things that are so very critically important to our patients. so that is really our biggest concern. we're not worried about working hard. we're not worried about putting in overtime. we're not worried about missing

vacations as much. we're worried about not being able to provide the care our patients need. we don't want folks to die. >> reporter: now, health care professionals are slightly optimistic about the fact that a vaccine could be coming within weeks, but they say they are going to have to stagger how that's administered to their staff. presumably, some staff will have medical impacts, effects, for at lease least 24 hours after getting the vaccine. chris? >> so much unknown. one out of three, what an astonishing and disturbing number. catie beck, thank you for that report. meantime, let's go west. right now, 33 million people in california are under new stay at home measures. it comes as that state records close to 35,000 new covid cases. that is a single day record. nbc's jake ward is in the san francisco bay area, which originally led the charge in the spring with shutdown orders. so, jake, take us through the new stay at home measures california is implementing, and

what are the biggest concerns there right now? >> reporter: good morning, chris. yes, that's right. here in the san francisco bay area, you know, streets like the one i'm on here in san francisco's chinatown would normally be buzzing with deliveries at this hour. right now, the only truck we've seen is the one behind me, making deliveries to a food bank. the shutdown orders voluntarily imposed by the five counties around me, along with mandatory orders in southern california and the san joaquin valley, are closing all non-essential businesses. that's barbershops. that's playgrounds. that's all sorts of things that people have come to rely on for their living and for their mental health. so that creates, of course, an incredible problem for the enormous numbers of californians who have been going through this all this time. that said, it is exactly what officials say needs to take place. you'll remember, chris, at the very beginning of this thing, california was one of the first places to go forward with shutdown measures. in that case, we had seen an incredible surge of cases, which

was then fought off. we defeated that surge at the time through these stringent lockdown measures. well, officials here are hoping that by taking these measures that affect, as you mention, 33 million californians, we may be able to turn it around again. chris? >> jacob ward, thank you so much for that in san francisco for us this morning. a lot of concern there, as well. here's where we are with the president-elect. joe biden has decided on the key members of his public health team. of course, with the pandemic, these selections are being very closely watched. california attorney general avenue yeri javier becerra, if confirmed, will be the hhs secretary. murphy will reprise his role as surgeon general, and dr. fauci will join as chief medical adviser. mike memoli is covering the transition from wilmington, delaware.

why javier becerra? he has been a leader in the fight to preserve ob caamacare is not a medical doctor. what have you learned about that selection, in particular? >> reporter: it's interesting. ooifz be i've been talking to democrats this morning. even they are expressing a little surprise that becerra is the choice for hhs. as we've been talking about becerra as a possible cabinet appointee, it's been for the justice department as attorney general. of course, becerra now the attorney general of the state of california. as you look at the announcement from the biden transition team this morning, the entire health care team, they're saying this is a team that looks like america. what has been one of the things we've been hearing about hhs specifically from different groups within the party? it's that it is critically important to have somebody leading hhs, leading up the pandemic response, in part, who is of color, who is representing those communities of color that have been hard hit, especially hard over the course of the coronavirus. so as you look at the team that

the biden team is rolling out today, you do see a number of people with deep experience in the medical field. you have dr. fauci staying on, of course, as the chief epidemiologist of the country with an expanded portfolio now in the biden administration. you have murphy coming back to the role of surgeon general. you have wolensky, infectious disease expert from massachusetts, who will become the cdc director. it's the different kind of experience that becerra brings to this, as well, though. as attorney general of california, he's been helping lead the fight to defend the affordable care act against challenges from the trump administration, from republican attorneys general across the country. he also has relationships that are key to have in government as a long-time member of congress. he served 12 terms in the house, was a member of the democratic leadership, was part of the fight to pass the aca in the first place. yes, he will be the first latino to hold this position. so the biden team making the case that there's a number of expertise and roles that becerra

comes to this position having played that will serve him well in this position, chris. >> boy, do they have a job ahead of them. mike memoli, thank you for that. new york governor andrew cuomo right now is holding a briefing on the state's covid-19 response with a special appearance by dr. anthony fauci. let's listen in. >> hodgepodge is a technical medical term that we have here in new york. we also apply it to government. hodgepodge, just a discoordinated mess. it also reduces forum shopping. you know, when you see states where a county -- one county is open, one county is closed, you want to go for dinner, you go to the neighboring county. you want to get a haircut, you go to the neighboring county, which only increases the number of people traveling, which is exactly what you don't want to do. and it reduces the confusion. we're also then taking it to the

next level. we try to coordinate with surrounding states. so if i'm going to close restaurants, i try to coordinate it with new jersey, connecticut, et cetera. if i close a restaurant but you live in brooklyn, and you can drive to new jersey, then all i did is increase the traffic in new jersey. it's not a perfect coordination, but in lieu of a national set of firm guidelines, which is, frankly, what i would have liked to see, we have come up with a regional compact of guidelines. we have been very transparent and communicative with new yorkers. we have websites. i give them numbers every day. i wanted them to hear the facts. if anything, i've been accused of being overly communicative. especially at home. but the more facts people know, i think, the better.

and we have been religious about following the data and the science. we do more testing than any state in the united states, by far. we have more data points, by far, and we rely on the data. it's not anecdotal, it's not political, it's not an opinion. we also started something called the surge and flex public health system management. it is something we're going to be implemented in an increased way today. surge and flex is not the most creative name, but what it says is, we surge and we flex the hospital system in this state. we start with 54,000 hospital beds statewide. we can then mandate, by the department of health, dr. howard zucker to my left, jim to his

left, garreth roads, melissa. dr. zucker, melissa, you've worked with them. dr. zucker can order a 50% increase in beds, which we've done before. dr. zucker can order no elective surng r surgeries, which we have done before, and we can create field hospital beds, which we've done before. we can create several thousand field hospital beds. so when you look at our hospital capacity, we start with 54,000 beds. you can increase it by 50%, takes you to 75,000 total bed capacity. roughly, 35,000 of those beds are now occupied. if you cancel elective surgery, we estimate that you reduce the number of occupied beds by about half. that takes us to a total system capacity of about 58,000 beds for covid patients. today, we have 4,600

hospitalized. so that gives you a range of the capacity for the system. we can also add 5,000 additional field hospital beds. that would be, from my point of view, the last resource. we did that, the jacob javits center, for example, we did 2,000 beds. dr. fauci, it looked like a field hospital in an army. you just saw an ocean of cots. i just hope we never have to get to that point. today, the department of health is going to issue an order saying hospitals have to increase their bed capacity 25%. they can, we can issue up to 50%. they can do that physically, but we're only going to go to 25% because we don't have a capacity criticality at this moment. we are aware of staff resources.

the staff comes into this stressed, right? they had -- you want to talk about a long year. nurses, doctors, hospital workers, 1199, they had the longest year of anyone. so they come into this stressed. we're going to ask retired doctors and nurses to sign up, and we will automatically reregister them in the state without cost. we believe we can get about another 20,000 nurses and doctors from this mechanism. and then the flex on the surge and flex is we have 215 hospitals. what happened in the spring, interestingly, was not that the system was overwhelmed. individual hospitals got overwhelmed. and the individual hospitals did

not have the capacity to balance patients. frankly, this was an education for me. so you have public hospital systems. let's say you have a public hospital system that had ten hospitals. one hospital gets overwhelmed. they did not have the capacity to balance those patients among their other nine hospitals, right? so even in the public systems, before somebody walked into one hospital that was already overburdened, they didn't say, "hold on, i'm going to put you in an ambulance and drive you to my sister hospital that has less volume." what our flex says is, those hospitals have to flex patient load and share it first within their system. we also shift patient load among

private hospitals. which was, frankly, more unorthodox, right? you could go to nyu langonlangot what we say in the flex is if nyu langone is filled or at capacity, we're going to transfer you to mt. sinai or another hospital. then we actually have the capacity to shift between public and private systems. none of this has been done before. it was highly disruptive for the hospital management system. but we started it in the spring. it went fine enough, and we've now had more experience in it. we've started the flex management system, where every night, we get an inventory from every hospital doctor. how many patients do you have? how many icu beds do you have?

what capacity do you have? we do that on a daily basis. if our hospital capacity becomes critical, we're going to close down that region. period. we close down the red zone. what is critical hospital capacity? our formula is if your seven-day average shows that within three weeks you will hit critical hospital capacity, we close you down. so if your seven-day average says, if that continues for three weeks, you're going to hit critical hospital capacity, we close you down. we want the three-week buffer. then we call critical 90% of your hospital capacity. so a little complicated.

if your seven-day average continues for three weeks, you're going to hit 90% of your hospital capacity, closed down. cdc changed their guidance on friday. some have been critical about the change in guidance from cdc. i'm not. i believe as the facts change, your opinion changes. as the facts change, your strategy should change. i don't have a problem with that. but they offered additional guidance on indoor dining especially, and we're going to follow their guidance. if after five days, we haven't seen a stabilization in a region's hospital rate, we're going to clamp down on indoor dining. five days, if the hospitalization rate doesn't stabilize in new york city, we're going to close indoor dining. we're now at 25% in new york

city. the rest of the state, any region where the hospitalization rate doesn't stabilize, they're now at 50% capacity, indoor dining, we're going to go to 25%. we have zones that are called orange zones, where it is already closed. that wouldn't apply here. bottom line for us, i see it as hospital capacity versus hospitalization critical mass. that's the ultimate bottom line. can your hospitals handle the increase until you start to see a reduction from the vaccinations? on the hospital capacity, do everything you can do to slow the spread. then at the same time, accelerate the vaccines. the frustrations we're seeing here, we estimate over 70% of the spread is coming from small

gatherings. that's a problem. we're going to go through the holiday season. i think this is going to be more small gatherings. i've been talking until i'm blue in the face about the apparent safety of being at home, the apparent safety of being with your family. that can be misleading. your brother, your sister, your mother can love you, but they can still infect you. i know you think you're sitting in your living room and you're safe, but your living room is not really a safe zone. this isn't a political question. trump's cdc and the biden advisers aadvis advisors agree, it's all about personal responsibility and compliance. it is a major issue for us here. i'm also frustrated that we see polls that suggest a high percent of americans are not ready to take this vaccine.

49% nationwide. bigger problem in the black community, 57% say they're not ready to take the vaccine. but 75% to 80% needs to be vaccinated to hit critical mass on the vaccination. that's a problem, if you have 50% saying i'm not taking it, but we have to hit 75% to 80%. the good news is new york still has one of the lowest positivity rates in the nation. only maine, vermont, hawaii are lower than we are. maine, vermont, hawaii, beautiful states, but different than new york. they don't have the cities. they don't have the density, et cetera. so for us to be down that low is really good news. as a matter of fact, our worst

region, our highest region in terms of positivity is still lower than 41 states. so it's tricky because, relative to everyone else, we're doing well, but the real question is, it's not a relative contest at the end of the day, it's how you're doing in your state. so to recap, we're going to monitor the hospital capacity. if it doesn't stabilize, we're going to reduce the indoor dining restrictions. we go to zero new york state. 25% everywhere else. we close down if you hit critical hospital capacity. we're implementing the surge and flex. we're adding 25% additional hospital beds. renew the registration for nurses and doctors to get us a backup staff pool.

continue to caution on the small spread. at the same time, we are gearing up to have the most efficient, most effective, most fair vaccination program in the country. reaching out to the black community, latinos, undocumented, to make sure that it's fair. so a couple of questions for you, dr. fauci. that's what we're doing, in general. your opinion has always been valuable to us. the holiday spread, i think it continues through christmas, hanukkah, et cetera. trying to guess, and i know it's a guess, when we could see a peak to this holiday spread. is it after new year's? is it mid-january?

do you have any guess, educated point about that? again, thank you very, very much for being with us. >> well, thank you very much, governor, for giving me the opportunity to listen to what i found to be a very interesting plan that you have for new york. it seems really sound. you have a lot of, you know, backup contingencies, which i like. so you're not going to get caught shorthanded on this, i'm certain. so thank you for that. with regard to the issue of the holiday spread and the peaks, they're going to be superimposed upon each other. so you would expect the full blunt of the travel and the family settings, gatherings, which you eluded to as being a problem, you'd expect that the effect of the thanksgiving surge would be probably another week, week and a half from now. because it's usually two and a half weeks from the time of the

event. the problem is, that's going to come right up to the beginning of the christmas/hanukkah potential surge. you have a surge upon is aua su and before you can handle that, more people are going to travel for christmas. they'll have more of the family and friends gatherings that you accurately said are an issue. so if those two things happen and we don't mitigate well, we don't listen to the public health measures that we need to follow, that we could start to see things really get bad in the middle of january. i think, not only for new york state, but for any state or city that is facing similar problems, without substantial mitigation, the middle of january could be a really dark time for us. but as you said in your presentation, governor, there are some things that we can do to mitigate against that. i think, particularly, the

appreciation that it's such a natural thing to think, when i have family and friends over for the holidays, christmas, hanukkah, you get undoorindoors your mask off because you're eating and drinking, and you don't realize there may be somebody that you know, that you love, this at's a friend, a fam member, who is perfectly well with no symptoms, and, yet, they got infected in the community and brought it into that small gathering that you're now having in your home. that's the reason why i want to underscore what you said. that's one of the issues. bottom line for your first question, mid-january is probably going to be the bad time. >> the small spread, family spread, living room spread -- we call it living room spread here -- like 16 states have done an order of no more than ten in a home. the cdc guidance, president

trump's cdc, says no more than ten. some states have gone to no more than eight. compliance is very low on that. do you think that is a sound rule, that no more than ten in the home? >> governor, i think that's a very sound rule, and i feel ten may even be a bit too much. it's not only the number, governor, but it's the people who might be coming in from out of town. you mentioned in your presentation how you don't want somebody who is from new york, who wants to go to a restaurant that's closed in new york, to go to new jersey, then they come back. they've traveled back and forth. in addition to the absolute number of the people in a home for a gathering or a social setting, you want to make sure you don't get people who just got off an airport or a plane or

a train and came in from florida or came in from wherever. that's even more risky than the absolute number. so not only the number of ten seems reasonable, but make sure that when people come in, they're not people you have no idea where they've been or who they've been exposed to. i moon i mean, you want to be friendly, but you have to be careful about that. >> you're so right, doctor. the practical implications are so difficult. as i mentioned, at a birthday yesterday, one of my daughters, who wasn't with me, who wanted to come up, she had to quarantine before she could come to my birthday, you know. so you want to travel and see someone, it's not just that weekend. it's the whole quarantining process before. in this state, we have very strict regulations of when you come in, what you have to do. on the vaccinations, looking

ahead, 75%, 80% is going to be very hard to reach. new yorkers are tuned in, and we're going to be very aggressive on public education, outreach, et cetera. but what does your crystal ball s say? when is 75%, 80% even feasible, you know? i hear anywhere from may, june, july, august, september. what would you guess there? which is when it's really over, right, when the vaccination hits critical mass? >> yeah, when you have 75%, 80% of the people vaccinated, you have an umbrella of protection over the community that the level of community spread will be really, really very low. the virus will not have any place to go. it's almost metaphorically, if you think the virus is looking for some victims, when most of

the people are protected, the virus has a hard time latching onto someone. when that happens, governor, is going to be entirely dependent upon how well we do, how well i do, you do, your health officials, in getting the message out of why it's so important for people to get vaccinated. because if 50% of the people get vaccinated, then we don't have that umbrella of immunity over us. let's say it works out well. let me answer your question specifically. we do a really good job of convincing people. between now and the end of december, you'd likely get a substantial proportion of health care providers and people in your nursing homes. as you get into january, you'll get the second level. then february, third. i'd think by the time you get to the beginning of april, you'll start getting people who have no high priority, just the normal man and woman, new yorker in the

street who is well, has no underlying conditions. if we get them vaccinated in a full-court press, get them really going, and you do that through april, may, and june, by the time you get to the summer, because, remember, it's a prime boost, which means you get vaccinated today, you get a boost 48 d28 days from now, and seven to ten days following that, you're optimally protected. even though you could get some protection even after the first shot. optimally, it's within seven to ten days following the second shot. if we do that well, by the time we get into the core of the summer, and get to the end of the summer and into the start of the third quarter of 2021, we should be in good shape. that's what i'm hoping for. that's the reason why it's so important to extend ourselves out to the community, particularly to the black,

african-american, latino, the people who are undocumented, the people who we really need to get vaccinated. >> doctor, i couldn't agree with you more on that. >> i want to talk about what we just heard from anthony fauci and governor cuomo. we have an internal medical physician. so much to talk about there, but let's start, because a lot of people right now are making plans about the holidays that are coming up. this idea that 70% of the positivity rate is coming from these small gatherings, and there is this tendency to think, "well, it's my family. they're my friends, so it is going to be okay." what's your message as people are making those very important decisions for the next several weeks? >> well, thank you, chris. what we need people to know is that we're in a very dire situation in this country. i think that's been made very, very obvious by dr. fauci and

others. the problem with where we're at right now, we started out november with an already existing uptrend of cases in america. we then will see an even larger surge due to the thanksgiving holiday, when many, many millions of people traveled and families gathered, understandably. but what we've yet to see is the numbers that are still lagging one to two weeks behind. then just a few weeks later, of course, we have thanks -- rather, christmas, hanukkah, new year's, where people really want to come together. i get it. i want to see my family, but this is hugely problematic. if people do, in fact, travel and see people outside of their homes, it's setting us up for a very, very dark winter to come. >> one of the things that governor cuomo has talked about throughout, and talked about again today, is that he's good with the idea that, as the facts change, the guidance changes, right? one of the things i hear is that people are confused. people are confused because they

think they know something, and then it changes. then it changes again. there's already, as you know, a ton of misinformation out there. the frightened -- the number of people frightened about the vaccine, as we just saw. do you agree with that, that there have to be adjustments, and do you understand the confusion that smart people who want to do the right thing have right now? >> i do agree, actually, with the changes that have to be made in real time. this is how science works. we have to look moment to moment and at what is happening, and then make decisions based on evidence. the facts are that our hospitals are completely overwhelmed. we're running out of supplies. doctors and nurses are getting sick themselves. this is just over the last, you know, month or so. medical care for everyone is suffering, and so many lives will be lost needlessly if we don't all step up right now. it's very hard to hear things

changing so rapidly. what i have to tell you, michael ole st olsterholm said this best, front line workers are the last line you have, and we don't have a deep bench. that is a fact. we need everyone's help right now to rally as a country and do the things we know work. like wearing masks, distancing, avoiding gatherings indoors, and washing our hands. >> dr. ungerlieder, they're simple things and have become complicated for some people to follow. it is always important to have you on and get that voice. i thank you for sitting with us and listening to what dr. fauci and the governor had to say. we appreciate it. still to come, a big deadline today in the georgia senate races, and the latest from the candidates, including a one-man debate. refusal to accept that president trump lost the election. lection. mornings were made for better things than rheumatoid arthritis. when considering another treatment, ask about xeljanz...

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if you're in georgia, today's the last day to register to vote in the run-off elections. right now, jon ossoff is rallying voters in an atlanta suburb with a boost from a former presidential candidate, castro. ossoff is fresh off his first debate of the run-off, at least that's what it was supposed to be. his opponent, the republican senator, david perdue, was a no-show, leaving ossoff on stage with an empty podium. the candidates in the other race, republican senator loeffler and reverend warnock both showed up, armed with sharp attacks. i want to bring in adrienne jones, director of the pre-law program. and michael steele, former rnc chairman. michael, one of the takeaways of the night was senator loeffler declining to say that president trump lost the election. i mean, republicans seem to be stuck between having to claim this was rigged and, yet, need people to trust the system and

get out and vote. i mean, do you think her refusal to say the president lost ultimately helps her get votes, or does it keep people away? >> i think it helps her with the base people who are with the president and with her. the question is, will that be enough to win a special election on january 5th? they have -- i mean, calling it conflicting messaging would be an understatement. it is just, you know, factually devoid. it is misleading. it is undermining the very goal of the georgia republican party. to turn out the vote in what is an election about the balance of power in the united states senate. the president, up until now, has told everyone that vote by mail is not good. now, they're trying to claim that, well, but we still need you to vote. the question is whether or not people buy that. it is going to be a hard sell. >> adrienne, republican state officials like governor kemp and the secretary of state have been

getting absolutely hammered by president trump over the results. they're now shooting down this new attempt by some georgia state lawmakers to call a special session to appoint electors for president trump. governor kemp and the lieutenant governor writing, this little bit i'll read, doing this in order to select a separate slate of presidential electors is not an option that is allowed under state or federal law. the judicial system remains the only viable and quickest option in disputing the results of the november 3rd election in georgia. then this morning, the attorney general tweeted his support for that position. the attorney general of georgia. >> they stand to possibly keep nare voting fre in their votingsers from turning out in what is an important election. >> i'm wondering what you're hearing there on the ground. is there a real sense that this

is going to have an impact? >> it seems to be possible. i don't have as good a line on how republican voters are feeling, but they seemed very excited about the president's visit on saturday. you know, kelly loeffler debated last night with reverend warnock, and maintained a party line that seems to speak to her base. so, you know, it seems as if she's trying to talk to republican voters in georgia, based upon an old formula. it is going to take a couple weeks to see whether or not people are going to want to turn out. >> michael, politico has this old south politics versus new south politics. i'll quote from the article. with georgia's demographic shifting, love alreadyeffler's

tailored to older, whiter votes skewing republican, is out of step with a changing electorate. it is putting the politics of the old south, veiled by racist rhetoric, pits against the south's young constituency. is the old south verse the i couldn't -- new south how you see things playing out in the months and years ago? >> absolutely. i've been in this space 10, 15 years. you have to remember, this trend began in the now blue state but very red state of virginia, and it has moved subsequently from virginia to north carolina, south carolina, georgia. you can see the trend lines as the south changes. not only changing in terms of the demographics but in terms of attitude. even white, you know, families that have long roots in the

confederacy, this generation and future generations are more and more removed from that legacy, appreciating what it actually did to the country and what it means to the country. so it is changing across a whole number of sectors. politico put their finger on an important die m thynamic in the upcoming race. this will be a litmus test of how much the south, represented here in georgia, we've seen it in south carolina and elsewhere, actually is ready to move into its future. >> michael steel, adrienne jones, great to see both of you. thank you so much for being on. and it's starting. the uk will begin to vaccinate people against the coronavirus in less than 24 hours. we'll get a look at how the process will work and who is first in line, next. t in line, a helps you brush in vital minerals to actively repair and strengthen enamel. so you don't just brush to clean,

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at this very moment, health officials in the uk are making final preparations before they begin vaccinating their citizens for covid-19. this time tomorrow, health care workers and people over 80 there will be among the first people in the world to get the pfizer vaccine. nbc's keir simmons is outside a hospital in london for us. hey, keir. it's good to see you. walk us through this process there, and, maybe, are there things the u.s. will be looking at to learn from it? >> reporter: hey, chris. good to see you, too, my friend. yeah, look, as the evening falls here in the uk, it is hospitals

like this one behind me here that's getting ready to begin the vaccinations tomorrow. pretty impressive moment, and an important one. this hospital is actually where the british prime minister, boris johnson, was treated when he was hit by the coronavirus. it's really being seen as a turning point and, yet, a lot of the conversation is about the hurdles. i think some of those hurdles you can learn from there in the u.s. it is not really big hospitals like this one that are crucial, it is the little village holes, the doctors offices, the places that are remote, many rural areas, that this vaccine has to reach. it's not so tricky, experts tell me, to get big batches of the vaccine to the secret locations where they've been stored here in the uk at very, very, very cold temperatures, but then you have to fan it out across the country. that's what's happening tonight and in recent days. you have to fan it out right across the country, and then begin this process of vaccination. remember, when you defrost this vaccine, you have about five

days to administer it. it comes in 1,000-dose batches, chris. so you can imagine, you have to get enough people in the right place, at the right time, as this vaccine, and then get the people vaccinated. that's not enough, of course. there are two doses of the vaccine. it is a logistical challenge. they say they're up to it here, but it is tricky, and it is going to take -- politicians here are clear, it is going to take time. they're talking about it as a marathon, not a sprint, chris. it will run into next year, easily. >> keir simmons, thank you so much. always good to see you. 34 days after the election, president trump's legal team continues its fruitless efforts to fight the biden win in court. they filed more than 50 lawsuits now and lost the majority of them. on friday alone, courts in five states, nevada, michigan, minnesota, arizona, and wisconsin, all tossed out or rejected claims of fraud and misconduct.

one judge calling the efforts bizarre. so far, no court has found a single instance of fraud. the president's claims, though, appear to have boosted efforts in some states to make it more difficult for people to register to vote. nbc has new reporting to vote. nbc's james tim has new work for the claims laying the groundwork for disenfranchising voters. also with us, eddie glous, chairman of studies at princeton university and an msnbc contributor. good morning to both of you, jane in your reporting, you do single out georgia which, of course, is the state where that statewide voting is happening sooner than anybody. what's happening there as we speak? >> in georgia, it's been a perfect microcosm of what will we're going to see around the country. georgia often leads the way when it comes to voter restrictions. they were first to do voter

restricted i.d. at the polls. you see michigan, look, they did not have fraud. this was a secure, safe election, results accurate. they defended those results but they'ral calling for more restrictions. secretary of state raffensperger is calling for another layer or step in the mail-in voting. and challenging the residency. because he says the federal law didn't make it possible for him to clean the voter rolls up. we're not seeing a lot of efforts to make it easier to change how you do voter registration. but we are seeing efforts to maybe tighten is up a lot. they're saying, look, people feel cheated. we have to make the laws stricter. it's important to note there's no evidence of voter fraud. so you're fighting a topic that we don't see in american elections. >> yeah, we've said that over and over and over again, eddie. and yet, the president speaking in georgia he's saying i

actually won here. no you didn't, you lost by 12,000 votes but he continues to say the reason he lost is because of this unfounded voter fraud. what concerns you do you have, eddie, about the long-term effects of this constant drumbeat? what, first, great to see you, chris. one is that it's going to further erode confidence and trust in our democratic process. it's not so much -- the concern should not be so much whether or not donald trump is successful in this moment but what is he unleashing. and that is this general sense of the illegitimacy. process. that's the first claim. the second claim is this, we need to understand this question around voter fraud and what follows from is it. it's not reducible from donald trump. donald trump is a caricature of a process that's been a part of the party's playbook for a long time. a lot of us have been shouting

for a long time, the claims and voter fraud, that justify voter fraud laws, to justify voters in some way were in fact figments people's imaginations. this is, chris, what has been trying to undermine our democracy. we have to understand what it is historically, and what it's doing in the present and the warning it's suggesting by going forward. >> and then there's another layer of this, jane, which you write about which is the attack on mail-in voting, right? >> yeah. you know, a lot of people hadn't looked at mail-in voting laws and rules that regulate it for a long time because most people didn't vote that way. count this would have hundreds of mail-in ballots, not tens of thousands, millions of mail-in ballots. i think you'll see people try to tighten up those rules because they've argued, president trump has argued, they were less

secure in this election. again no evidence of that. getting back to what eddie says, this is an important conversation. trump has convinced millions of people that elections are insecure. it used to be the kind of thing you heard in state houses not around dinner table conversations at home. >> i never heard it on the campaign trail. i can't tell you how often i've heard it over the last six months or so, eddie. i'm desperately looking for any kind of a silver lining here so feel free to shoot me down as i say this. is it possible since more people now, amid all of this fighting, more people are aware of their own rights, more people whose right to vote won't be challenged maybe wiser and join the fight as well. once and for all, this historical problem that we know exists could be addressed? >> i think, absolutely. we know organizing on the ground. we see what happened for stacey abrams when they ran for governor and what kemp and most

folks did. and that organizing on the ground from the organization, had an impact and a concrete effect in flipping georgia. so, yes, everyday ordinary folks are committed to their democratic -- their democratic responsibility. and they know that there are folks out here trying to rob them of it but we need to understand this very quickly, this is an all-out assault on american democracy. it has always been the case and it is the case. this is what this is. folks don't want certain people to vote and we need to understand is that as an all-out assault on our democracy. >> very important, the weapons may change, the social media, the speeches that the president gives, but the impact remains the same. and the problem that it creates which is an assault on democracy also remains the same. thanks to both of you. what a great way to end the program. actually some facts, imagine that, jane timm, i recommend people read this story at

nbcnews.com. and always griet seat to see yo eddie. i'm chris jansing, i'll see you back here. andrea major shell mitchell reports. here. andrea major shell mitchell reports. it is not a steroid or inhaler. it is not a rescue medicine or for other eosinophilic conditions. it's an add-on injection for people 12 and up with asthma driven by eosinophils. nearly 7 out of 10 adults with asthma may have elevated eosinophils. fasenra is designed to target and remove eosinophils, a key cause of asthma. it helps to prevent asthma attacks, improve breathing, and can reduce the need for oral steroids like prednisone. fasenra may cause allergic reactions. get help right away if you have swelling of your face, mouth, and tongue, or trouble breathing. don't stop your asthma treatments unless your doctor tells you to. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection, or your asthma worsens. headache and sore throat may occur.

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good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington. as president trump has again suffered another rejection in courts. with a federal judge in michigan denying the republican effort to undo the certification, president-elect joe biden is the

winner. in michigan the secretary of state is describing a terrifying moment outside of her home over the weekend. saying armed protesters gathered in front of her house, shouting obscenities while she was inside with her 4-year-old son. >> we're here in front of the secretary of state's house, and we want her to know we will continue to be here. that's right. right there. we will continue to be here because we are sick and tired of her ignoring everything that has to happen. >> unbelievable. meanwhile in georgia a federal judge is dismissing another legal challenge, calling the lawsuit brute by former trump attorney sidney powell, quote, the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any election. this has president trump's personal lawyer rudy giuliani is suffering covid after testing positive. at events